You know, my dad was a lieutenant colonel at Ft. Lewis on the 3rd of March, 1941. Fifteen months later, he was commanding a theater of war.
Going to the theater is such a joyous experience. My dad would take my sister and me to plays when we were very young, like six or seven years old.
I really loved to sing all the time, and I was constantly entertaining. Finally, my dad saw an article in the local newspaper in Phoenix, and it was for a children's theater, an audition for 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.'
My dad was a theater actor, so he had an agent, and he brought me into his agency when I was maybe four years old. That was how I started. I started modeling, and it progressed from there.
NC-17 means that you get it in like 3 theaters. They won't run the spots on MTV, won't run the advertising. It's the kiss of death so there was really no other choice.
Well, I design costumes because I started with the theater in Chicago, but somehow a few lines just sort of fell to me to do it. And I studied it in school and I always liked it.
I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.
The great thing about theater is that you have so much time to prepare, and to fail, before presenting it to the public. In film, the high-wire act seems to be that much farther up, and the net seems to be less there.
What's great in theater is that you can sustain the arc of a character for a full three hours, whereas in film or TV, you have to create that arc in little pieces, and usually out of sequence.
I did great things in the theater. I did some nice roles, 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' or 'La Vie en Rose.' And I love my role in 'Frantic.'
Macbeth is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of Macbeth. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.
I always thought moving to New York would mean starting over in theater, because I had great work in Chicago and didn't want to become a waitress here.
When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy.
Ingmar Bergman had a great sense of humor, and he had a very special, characteristic laugh that you always recognized - if he went to watch a theater show, 'Ah! He is here tonight.'
In the evening, since I have a lot of friends in theater, we might take in a Deaf West production in North Hollywood, or, since I'm a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, they have screenings that are really great.
Get in theater, really work your craft. Get really, really good so that when people say your name, your name is associated with quality, with integrity.
I had a good theater career for years. I played Hamlet when I was 22, and I've played some really great roles.
The oldest form of theater is the dinner table. It's got five or six people, new show every night, same players. Good ensemble; the people have worked together a lot.
I never leave a piece of theater that I love and say, 'That was a good point; They made a good point.' I leave, and I feel something.
I still have a fear of theater. I don't know if I will manage that. I used to do it. I developed a bit of a phobia. It's not a real phobia. I can go in and watch.
I haven't been offered a lot of comedy. In theater, I've done quite a bit of comedy or dramas that included a lot of funny stuff. But in my TV work, those aren't the roles that I've been offered.
